Alexei Nikitin

ALEXEI NIKITIN was born in Kiev, Ukraine, USSR, in 1967. He studied physics at Kiev University and spent time in the army, after which he worked in the gas and nuclear industries– during which time he devised an emergency system for suppressing dust contamination from the Chernobyl sarcophagus.

Nikitin published his first story in 1990 and has since published a number of novels and novellas. In 2000 he won the Ukrainian Writers’ Union Korolenko Prize for the year’s best work of fiction in Russian. Istemi is his first work to be translated into English.